Unicode Support

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Moderators: Peter Thomsen, miker

Foghlaimeoir
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 1:22 pm

Post by Foghlaimeoir » Wed May 02, 2007 2:11 pm

In future releases, please provide Unicode font support for Lyrics and Text. (Perhaps this could be done as a plug-in?)

In my work with Finale, both for musicology studies and for church settings, I need to create lyrics using polytonic Greek and Church Slavonic. These languages use orthographical systems with many, many diacriticals -- the numbers of characters go beyond what is available in any ASCII scheme. The character sets are readily available in Unicode fonts -- but Finale does not yet yet support Unicode. I know a number of musicians doing the same kind of work, who have lamented this situation. Some have turned away from Finale to other notation systems.

In the meantime, the work-around I've devised is laborious, and produces unsatisfactory visual results for character spacing, hyphens and word extensions:

1. Set the music in Finale.
2. Enter lyrics, preferably in a font from the same family as the one to be used in the final product (helps with spacing and character width).
3. Export the page as a graphic.
4. Use a word-processing program to create the lyrics with the appropriate diacriticals, and break this text so that it corresponds with the text on each system in the Finale page. (Not all word-processing programs support Unicode in text boxes or text fields, though they may do so for text entered directly into the document.)
5. Import the Finale graphic from step 3 into a word-processing or presentation or page program.
6. For each line of text in the score, create a text box or text field, set its fill property to opaque white, superimpose it over the Finale lyric line.
7. Copy the appropriate text from step 4 into the correct text field.
8. Edit the line of text for spacing.
9. Enter undescores for word extensions.

If anyone has a better work-around, I'd be grateful to hear about it!


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TeoIV
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:53 pm
Finale Version: 26(Mojave&Monteray)
Operating System: Mac

Post by TeoIV » Fri Dec 08, 2023 9:55 pm

In the past flags in Unicode worked in my scores. I noticed in my downstairs Finale they don't work :cry: so I tried copying the flag image & pasting into text, no go, so I used the graphics tool, inserted graphics, sized & positioned them.

I had tried making the flags articulation graphics, that didn't succeed.. Maybe someone has a way to make the flags inline graphics easily like they did before in unicode? See attached.

Thanks so much for Finale, these forums & the great people helping out around here! Love ya' all! :D
Attachments
Andalucia18.zip
(246.5 KiB) Downloaded 16 times
Screen Shot 2023-12-08 at 4.51.44 PM.png

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Peter Thomsen
Posts: 6601
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 6:47 pm
Finale Version: Finale v27.4
Operating System: Mac

Post by Peter Thomsen » Sat Dec 09, 2023 3:06 am

If I understand you correctly, you are talking about national flags, not about note flags - right?

And in your attached PDF file the national flags at Ernesto Lecuona’s birth and death display correctly - right?

But in your attached Finale document the national flags do not display - right?

Unfortunately I am unable to reproduce the problem.
For me the national flags display correctly - in your PDF as well as in your Finale v26 .musx document.
I suspect that your problem is a font problem, rather than a Finale problem.
Do the font characters display in other computer programs?
Mac OS X 12.6.9 (Monterey), Finale user since 1996

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TeoIV
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:53 pm
Finale Version: 26(Mojave&Monteray)
Operating System: Mac

Post by TeoIV » Thu Dec 14, 2023 12:44 am

Such a big thanks to you Peter for a super quick and extensive answer!

I save .mus files as well as musx, maybe I should have clarified I want the Finale files to have the flags whatever version of Finale is being used, like the old free 8 voice transposable version only on Windows now. My newer Mac shows the unicode flags fine but the fact my older Mac OS stopped showing them rang my QC bell :cry: , I want a forever solution.

I should have stated it this way:

Is there a way to have a graphic I import (flags now but maybe claves or something else) be an INLINE GRAPHIC? I imported the graphic (flag) into expressions, I imagine if you download my attachment you can see the 2 flags in there but I couldn't use them as expressions..

Instead I imported the graphics then zoomed into 400% or so to get the flag graphics to look correct. 1 answer would be just tell people the unicode should work but may not, I'm looking for a permanent solution where the flags or whatever graphics will be there. Maybe I'm sharing a feature request? :idea:

Also I'm open to comments, do the flags easily share what country of birth & death is? I think it's clever & icon like, futuristic eh? In Lecuona's case he lived a lot in the USA but died in Cayman Islands at a health resort - and his mom is from there so I thought he technically died there but maybe USA should get credit - should I go find out where he's buried :? ? So this is the 2nd part of my topic, comments about using flags & should it be place of burial? BTW some dates aren't perfect, I think LVB they use his Baptism for the date..

Thanks for these great forums to get out my suggestions, questions, ideas & comments! You all are great! -Teo

ps I'd love to be able to put claves as expressions.. attached
claves.jpg
1/2drumstick claves palmed

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